Sullivan & Cromwell is pushing forward with its ambitious expansion plans in London, with the firm set to take a pair of London finance partners from Weil Gotshal & Manges.
Legal Business understands that the US firm is set to bring City duo Chris McLaughlin and Alastair McVeigh from Weil, in a move which will reunite them with former Weil London head Mike Francies.
McLaughlin will lead S&C’s private equity sponsor and borrower acquisition and leveraged finance practices in London, while McVeigh will lead the firm’s European private credit offering, including direct and specialty lending.
In a statement, S&C’s firmwide co-chairs Robert Giuffra and Scott Miller said that the news represented ‘a significant step in our strategic expansion in London’.
McLaughlin, who has been at Weil since 2014, is a Legal 500 leading partner for acquisition finance, advising PE sponsors and providers of private credit on acquisition and leveraged finance deals, with a track record of work for clients including Brookfield, Inflexion, Montagu and Apax Partners.
McVeigh – who is also ranked by Legal 500, as a next generation partner for acquisition finance – has particular expertise in private credit, with a focus on direct and specialty lending, working with clients including Ares and Goldman Sachs, while he also has experience of large-scale restructurings. He was made up to partner at the firm five years ago.
The news comes after Francies, who led Weil’s City base for over two decades before retiring from the firm at the end of 2024, was tempted back into private practice to play a key role in S&C’s ambitious City reboot. He joined the firm last September alongside Kirkland & Ellis restructuring partner Kon Asimacopoulos, who is now co-head of the London office alongside John Horsfield-Bradbury.
Asimacopoulos and Horsfield-Bradbury said the hires of McLaughlin and McVeigh marked ‘a major step in the execution of our private capital strategy in London’.
‘They are top-tier lawyers across private equity acquisition and leveraged finance, private credit, direct and specialty lending,’ their statement continued. ‘Together, they will play a key role in the growth of our finance offering in Europe. Their experience and approach align closely with our firm’s global platform and our market-leading U.S. finance practice.’
Since Francies and Asimacopoulos came on board, S&C has made a series of other hires in London, including private equity partner Aprajita Dhundia and tax partner Ian Ferreira from Kirkland, as well as former Shearman & Sterling structured finance specialist Patrick Clancy, who is joining as counsel.
The Wall Street firm has historically taken a very conservative approach to hiring in London. The most recent hire before Francies and Asimacopoulos was the June 2025 addition of former A&O Shearman global financial services regulatory co-head Barney Reynolds.
Reynolds was just the third lateral partner hire for S&C in London since 2013, meaning it has now made twice as many lateral partner hires since September as it did in the 12 years before that.
The elite Wall Street firm has set out a clear ambition to strengthen its London offering and build up its private capital capabilities at a time when competition among US firms for top City talent and high-value transactional work remains intense.
Speaking to LB in September, S&C co-chair Scott Miller emphasised the need for greater scale in London, and cited a 50% increase in headcount as a growth objective for the office.
The firm carried out a strategic review at the end of 2024 which established that it needed to take a more aggressive approach to recruitment in the City.
While London is the firm’s second-largest office globally, it lags New York in terms of scale. As of September, the City office comprised 18 partners and 90 lawyers, compared with 650 lawyers in New York, including 114 partners.
In contrast, Weil has a much larger London base, with around 215 lawyers in the capital, according to the firm’s website. The firm recently made up four London lawyers in its annual promotions round, including finance specialist Kai Zhang.
The London office, which is now co-led by corporate duo David Avery-Gee and Jonathan Wood, has seen a degree of turnover of late, with A&O Shearman funds partner Phil Baynes and Ropes & Gray private equity secondaries partner Simon Saitowitz joining last year following the departure of a trio of senior funds partners to Sidley Austin.
Kirkland also recruited a competition duo from the firm in December, taking partner Nafees Saeed and counsel Chris Thomas.
Weil’s finance practice, which is led by private equity partner Tom Richards, has been added to over the past 18 months with the hire of PE infrastructure partner Simon Caridia from White & Case and Nicola Noël from pension fund PSP Investments.
Weil was unavailable for comment.
